Mongrel wrote:If you could own any one URL right now, regardless of the current owners (if any), what URL would you pick and why?

My first thought was some huge brand that I could then sell back for much dineros, so something like coca-cola.com or microsoft.com. But then I figured, might as well be able to mess with huge quantities of idiots while I was negotiating a price, so foxnews.com it is.

If pterosaurs count, then a pterodactyl, no question. If not, then something really small, like an eoraptor or-- wait, are there any dinosaurs smaller than an eoraptor? Googling brings up this, and it looks pretty cute, so let's go with one of those.

Mongrel wrote:If you could own any one URL right now, regardless of the current owners (if any), what URL would you pick and why?

I'm gonna answer this question because I just found a good one: batmanwasaninsidejob.com (from a thread about whether or not Batman'd have a website). I have no idea what I'd put on there, buuut I figure I can borrow a few hundred dollars from Francois after he pulls off his scheme and commission a short Batman comic from some up-and-coming webcomic artist.

You're an marketer at a low-rent publishing house and are responsible for selling books of... dubious quality. There is an upcoming trilogy of schlock sci-fi to be published, which are basically softcore rewrites of the Star Wars original trilogy with the plots changed just enough to be a different story (but still pretty clearly derivative), all different names and places, and of course way fewer clothes and lots more sexy times.

What titles will you choose for these three books?

Büge wrote:Riddle me again!

You have found one of Shakespeare's four lost plays, otherwise complete though the preface and title pages are missing. It is a comedy, not dissimilar to Twelfth Night, and centres on an hilarious whirlwind of events surrounding the famous gift of an elephant named Abul-Abbas from the legendary Caliph of Baghdad Harun al-Rashid to the court of Charlemagne. After much controversy, it is agreed that as a reward for restoring this lost play to the world, you can title it.

What feature have you never, ever seen in a video game ever, but would love to see?

For now I'll give the cop out answers (something not yet technically possible but which would be gnilley) of either "true human-level AI" or "full-immersion VR that solves the physical-motion-mirroring-virtual problem (better than walking on an omnidirectional treadmill)", but I'll talk about it with my roommate on our 5+(Weather) hour road trip tomorrow and try to come up with a legitimate answer.

Thankfully trip was only 5 hours. My roommate had a much better answer: Time-based difficulty scaling. If you haven't played the game in a month, it should ramp down the difficulty until you get back into the hang of things.

I'm gonna answer every single question in this topic at one point and also you've got some kind of strange gift that nobody ever knew about, Mongrel, and it's impressive and a little sad because I know you're not a good person in real life

You're an marketer at a low-rent publishing house and are responsible for selling books of... dubious quality. There is an upcoming trilogy of schlock sci-fi to be published, which are basically softcore rewrites of the Star Wars original trilogy with the plots changed just enough to be a different story (but still pretty clearly derivative), all different names and places, and of course way fewer clothes and lots more sexy times.

What titles will you choose for these three books?

Hmm, tough. As tempting as it would be to just porno-parody the old Star Wars titles, there's a big chance that doing that will get us sued. So, with some help from an online Random Pulp Novel Title Generator, I have decided the books' titles shall be Princess of the Nine Stars, Wisdom of the Martian Mystics, and The Cyber-Tronic Emperor's Last Stand. The title of the series itself is gonna be Weapons of the Mechanical Empire. I think those are all sufficiently cheesy titles.

Mongrel wrote:Is there a particular Middle Eastern country you'd like to visit?

Nope!

But that's boring. So I'll go with Turkey because I sort-of internet dated a girl from there a while ago and tracking her down and convincing her that I moved because I love her would at least make for one hilarious afternoon.

Mongrel wrote:Is there a particular Middle Eastern country you'd like to visit?

Nope!

But that's boring. So I'll go with Turkey because I sort-of internet dated a girl from there a while ago and tracking her down and convincing her that I moved because I love her would at least make for one hilarious afternoon.

Mongrel wrote:Is there a particular Middle Eastern country you'd like to visit?

Nope!

But that's boring. So I'll go with Turkey because I sort-of internet dated a girl from there a while ago and tracking her down and convincing her that I moved because I love her would at least make for one hilarious afternoon.

Man this is kind of a banana answer.

If it helps: the joke is that she would be impossibly creeped out by the lie, and not disappointed by the truth.

Mongrel wrote:You have found one of Shakespeare's four lost plays, otherwise complete though the preface and title pages are missing. It is a comedy, not dissimilar to Twelfth Night, and centres on an hilarious whirlwind of events surrounding the famous gift of an elephant named Abul-Abbas from the legendary Caliph of Baghdad Harun al-Rashid to the court of Charlemagne. After much controversy, it is agreed that as a reward for restoring this lost play to the world, you can title it.

It is 1991. CommonWhat Games Inc. is proud to welcome a pioneering game designer such as yourself as you into their ranks. With your help, CommonWhat hopes to dominate the 3rd party 16-bit console game market.

CommonWhat's new game and flagship title begins with gremlins causing Air Force one to crash too close to ENEMY TERRITORY. The president is now being held hostage by cartoonish, racially-stereotyped sprites and the player must brave eight fast-paced side-scrolling levels of non-stop platform shooter action to rescue him.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to determine the theme of those eight levels, including a level boss.

You are dropped by parachute into a hot mess of ferns and palm trees filled to the brim with spear and shield wielding gremlin buggers. Atop the waterfall, the boss awaits: A giant stone gremlin face that shoots lasers out of its eyes and spits gremlin spear throwers.

Stage Two: Cave-in

Entering the mouth of the giant face, you find yourself in a quasi-auto scroller in which there's a instant death cave in steadily advancing behind you. Jumping over lava pits and lava waterfalls, you avoid the now bomb chucking gremlins until you arrive at a large lava lake, from which rises a gremlin riding a magma dragon. Avoid its molten breath and the lava stones the gremlin throws until you pump enough hot lead into its face that is skeletonizes, falling and forming a bridge to the next area.

Stage Three: Ice Ice Gremlin

Slip and slide your way through a frozen wasteland complete with bullshit instant death ice spikes and slippery platforms. The gremlins are now wearing snow mufflers and throwing snowballs that don't deal damage but instead knock you around and stun. Inexplicably, there are also giant yetis. However, upon killing one it is revealed they are merely robots being piloted by more gremlins. The boss is a giant skeleton/robot snowman being piloted by a gaggle of frantic gremlins throwing snowballs at you in an attempt to knock you into the spikes.

Stage Four: Skychase

As a last act of defiance the robot skeleton snowman gremlin throws you skyhigh before exploding. Luckily, you happened to land on a passing Pegacorn, and now you must mash B as fast as possible to shoot down all the gremlins using hang gliders flying in odd patterns. The boss is a robot Pterodactyl. Avoid his sonic screech attack! You may think staying under him is safe, but that will trigger his Chaos Dive.

Stage Five: The Search for a Cure

Your Pegacorn was injured in the boss fight and needs your help! Brave the lost sunken city of Atlantis to find Evercrystal, the one thing that can save his life. Beware, however, the Gremlins have also found this lost ruin and also seek the Evercrystal to power their ultimate invention: A Bomb! The Ancient Guardian who failed to stop his city from dying awakens to redeem himself at the end of the stage. He is quickly mind-controlled by the Gremlins and you must avoid his sword and plasma attacks while shooting off the legion of Gremlins that cling to his command circuit.

Stage Six: Meanwhile...

While the hero returns with the Evercrystal given to him by the now freed Guardian to heal his Pegacorn, the President has escaped his ropes and now seeks to avoid capture again. Your basic forced stealth section as you avoid enemy gremlin patrols inside their gigantic mecha-base. No boss.

Stage Seven: Escape!

Making his way to a balcony overlooking a shattered wasteland, the President despairs. Suddenly, the hero (riding his Pegacorn) swoops in! The President jumps on and the chase is on! Similar to stage four except this time you must also be sure to not let the President fall off the Pegacorn. A second player can join in co-op style here to control the President as he throws bills at your enemies. Beware, however, as the boss is the robot skeleton snowman now riding the Pterodactyl.

Stage Eight: Revenge

Though you defeated both Pterodactyl and Robot Skeleton Snowman, the President has been recaptured. You must now break into their Mecha-base and slaughter them all. Your Pegacorn provides support by launching artillery strikes from outside. This level is extremely long but eventually you find yourself at the central command module in the heart of the Gremlins base. Laughing manically, the President reveals himself to be a Gremlin and steals the Evercrystal from you, powering the Bomb! You have three minutes to defeat Super-Gremlin and disarm the weapon.

Final Boss (Hard Mode Only)

If you're playing on Normal, Easy, or Romo mode, the game simply rolls credits and challenges you to retry with more vigor. However, should you be playing on Nightmare, your Pegacorn will save you at the last minute as the bomb explodes. Flying through the exploding base and avoiding debris is the least of your problems: The Super-Gremlin has survived and has harnessed the power of the Evercrystal to become Ultra-Gremlin. However, the Evercrystal fractured into three parts due to the darkness in the Super-Gremlin's heart, and the power of Courage and Lasers are absorbed into you and your Pegacorn. Use these new powers to destroy the Ultra-Gremlin once and for all. Beware, I'm using a lot of evil fire for this boss.